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Time to fly

My name is Lucy and I was raised Catholic. I guess I considered the latter fact important because everyone else did.There were pictures of Jesus and the Virgin Mary on our walls. It was how I knew I was special as a child. We lived in a large town by the coast called New Arden and there were quite a lot of Catholics there.

I didn't go to a Catholic primary school, I went to a mixed state school. Some of the other kids didn't know much about going to church. I found it quite hard to explain what things like mass were about. I'm not sure I understood it myself. The church was certainly fertile ground for my imagination as a child. Unlike some I wasn't morbidly fascinated by the death of Jesus I was instead drawn to angels. My particular favourite was the angel Haniel which means "Joy of God."

If you had asked me what I liked about angels so much I would have told you it was their wings. Most people think of them as fluffy and white but if you look at Medieval art they come in all sorts of colours.

In our family, my dad was Catholic but my mother was not. She used to tell people she had no faith but I know this wasn't true. I think her faith was something to do with nature because every week or so she would head out of New Arden and go up to the forest. She would never say what she was doing up there but she would always come back with this glow of happiness around her.

The story I am going to tell you happened when I was about fourteen. My best friend in the world at the time was a boy named Charlie. He'd always lived next door to me. We used to run wild together and look after each other I suppose. The word wild always comes into my mind when I think of Charlie. He seemed to feel life more fully than other people, when he was up, he was very happy and when he was down he was very sad. I put up with the down times because when he was happy he was so wonderful to be with. Charlie had a great imagination and could always think of the best adventures, I was just his willing accomplice, swept along in his wake.

This adventure didn't start with Charlie. It started with me getting sick. I'm not sure if I was physically sick or just sick with anxiety. It was like I sensed something was about to change but I didn't know what it was. I prayed and I asked Charlie to pray too. I just got sicker, my mother put me to bed and I lay there all curled in on myself and let the darkness carry me away into sleep.

I woke up the next morning and I felt this kind of itch between my shoulders. The more I thought about it the more it seemed to intensify. I got up, it was so early in the morning that the sun had not even risen. I snuck down the hall to our bathroom determined to get a look at what was itching so bad. When I looked in the mirror I saw to my surprise that two sparkling wings were rising up behind me. They weren't angel wings to my disappointment; they were more like those of a dragonfly. I shrugged and the wings flexed, I fluttered them and found myself rising.

Very quietly I went downstairs and climbed through the fence to get to Charlie's house. I was going to surprise him. I stood under his window, which is on the second floor and then I began to flutter my wings. Slowly I rose up and up until I was level with his window sill. I tapped quickly on the glass. Charlie woke up and came stumbling out of bed. He stared at me hovering there in the air with a look of consternation. He heaved the window open.

"How are you doing that."

"I'm an Angel,"

"Umm, do you think you could make me fly too."

"I don't know, but maybe I could lift you."

"Okay." He climbed up and sat on the sill

I think flying was such a crazy rush that I didn't really think this out, I know Charlie didn't. I put my arms around his waist and made to lift him up. I beat my wings fast and hard and we lifted. For a few moments I had him in my arms and then the weight of him began to drag me down and worse still he started slipping out of my grasp. I was trying to get a better hold when I lost him completely. Charlie plummeted to earth.

I was still hovering in the air and when I looked down I saw his crumpled still form. I was too shocked to scream instead I started flying fast straight over to our house. When I got there I found my mother standing anxiously on the porch like she knew something was up. I landed in front of her, my wings humming behind me. I was out of breath but I managed to gasp out.

"Charlie, I dropped him, he needs help."

She didn't say anything, then just rushed past me over to our neighbours house. I slunk upstairs and hid in my room. From my window I could see when the ambulance came screaming up our street and I watched them take Charlie away. A while later my mother came to find me. I was cried out by then and just sitting quietly watching the day break. She came in and sat beside me and gently stroked my wings.

"Is Charlie okay?"

"Yes, he'll live."

"Do you think I'm bad, I thought these were angel wings but maybe they are devils wings"

She looked sad then,

"No honey, they are fairy wings, they mean you are like me"

"Like you?"

"Yes sweetheart, but if you don't want them I have a way to take them away."

I shivered, I didn't want to lose them, "Is there a way to just hide them?"

She nodded, "We can do that too."

My mother helped me hide my wings and I started to go with her to the forest to help me understand my heritage. My dad asked no questions, maybe he knew. I went to see Charlie in the hospital a few weeks later, they have him locked in the psych ward. I couldn't tell him about my wings either but I don't think he believes me when I lie. Charlie has always been able to believe in amazing things.